Bill Clinton to Join Hillary on Campaign Trail in Iowa

DES MOINES, Iowa – Former President Clinton will campaign with his wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in Iowa next month, seeking to boost her bid for the Democratic nomination in a state where she trails in the polls.

The former president will spend three days in Iowa with Sen. Clinton from July 2-4.

"The schedule is still being worked out, but it is the first time he's joined the campaign," said spokesman Mark Daley. The Clintons have appeared together at campaign fundraisers.

Bill Clinton's decision to join the campaign comes at a time when Sen. Clinton is struggling in Iowa, which opens the nomination process with caucuses in January. Although she leads national polls of Democrats seeking the nomination, recent Iowa polls show her trailing John Edwards in the state. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama also is polling strongly in Iowa.

Late last month, an internal Clinton campaign memo urged the Democratic front-runner to bypass momentum-generating Iowa because of Clinton's lackluster showing despite drawing large crowds — a memo she immediately disavowed.

In the memo, deputy campaign manager Mike Henry wrote that for Clinton, Iowa is "our consistently weakest state."

The campaign memo argued that winning Iowa would require a huge investment — as much as $15 million that could cripple the campaign later as it moved ahead to later states.

"I believe we need a new approach to winning the Democratic nomination," Henry wrote in the memo which revealed a split over Iowa strategy within the campaign.

The former president is enormously popular with Democratic activists in Iowa. Last fall, when it was announced that Bill Clinton would be the keynote speaker at the Iowa Democratic Party's biggest annual fundraiser, the event sold out in hours.